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ST. JUDE CLASSIC PRESENTED BY FEDEX

June 13, 2009

Paul Goydos

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE

PHIL STAMBAUGH: Okay, Paul Goydos, back-to-back rounds of 64, lifted you from T-96 to T-3. Very nice play in the last two days. Maybe some general thoughts about your round today, and we can go through your birdies and other highlights.
PAUL GOYDOS: Yeah, today was kind of a carry-over of my last 9 yesterday. I shot 5-under, 9. I got to play good to make the cut from yesterday. Had a really solid -- maybe missed one fairway and hit every green coming in yesterday and shot 5-under for nine holes, and that kind of carried over today very similar.
I drove it pretty much in the middle of the fairway -- hit a lot of greens in regulation and made a couple of bombs, made a long putt on 9 for birdie and a long putt on 14, the Kodak hole for birdie, get my Kodak birdie out of the way.
Today was real solid. First hole I hit a 7-iron 2 inches. Pretty stress-free start to your round. I hit a 7-iron 10 feet on 8 and made a birdie. 9 was where I knew probably things were going well. Playing tough, had mud on my ball, and drove it in the fairway. Hit a 6-iron. We couldn't figure out the wind. Left myself 30 feet and made it for birdie. Kind of a bonus.
12, hit a perfect tee shot, nice little 9-iron about 15 feet and another one where it looked like it was going to lip out and hung on and lipped in.
14 moved the tee up. They did a great job, wonderful job, setting up the golf course after the rain too, the superintendent. Hit 7-iron. The pin was right in the corner of the water. I had the honor and kind of was the guinea pig. Really didn't have a good feel for it. Hit a 7-iron, played safe way away from the middle of the green. Actually made a 25-footer, 30-footer there that broke about 6 feet. At this point in time, you play safe, good things are happening.
16, I hit a really good tee shot and 3-wood into the front bunker. Hit a pretty good bunker shot out about 6 feet and made that for birdie.
For the most part, pretty stress-free day. I drove it in the middles every fairway felt like. Hit just about every green. Even when I missed a green, it was a pretty good shot that maybe trickled over the back like on 17 and trickled off to the right on 6.
5, I missed that green. Hit driver 3-wood into a par 4. Not concerned about missing a green in 3. I was very happy with the way I played. Hopefully I can do it for 18 more.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: Talk about the conditions out there after the storm.
PAUL GOYDOS: After the storm I was actually in my room, so I got fortunate enough to finish my round yesterday. The golf course is obviously playing a lot longer. But this golf course -- I looked out my window at about 4:15, 4:30. They had sirens going off in my hotel. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I guess the sirens don't mean anything, the best I can tell. The job that the superintendent and his staff did and the field staff getting the golf course ready, pretty remarkable.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: We'll go to questions. Please wait for the microphone. Just raise your hand.

Q. There's been a lot of talk in this tournament with Phil about balancing real life and golf. You during your career have had to do that certainly as much as anyone. How do you manage it?
PAUL GOYDOS: Well, I don't think it's really a management as much as it's just priorities. This is my job and it's also a game, and I would think that just that I happen to play golf for a living -- reporters, you have to do the same thing. For those of you who are parents, being able to write -- taking a month off to take care of your family, it's a easy decision. You guys wouldn't have a second thought.
That's just the same with our job. There is no decision to be made. It's a very natural -- comes naturally. That's what you do when you're a parent. There's an issue there that you need to take care of, that's what you do. The advantage that again I would say that we have is again our job is reasonably lucrative. If I took a year off in '04, my job lets me do that.
In my opinion it makes it even easier to make a decision than some guy who is grinding out, blue-collar, hard-working guy. I would almost make the argument that it's much easier for a guy like me to do that than maybe a guy again working 50 weeks a year.

Q. What has this year been like? Obviously your ex-wife died earlier this year. What has this been like?
PAUL GOYDOS: It's obviously not a very pleasant experience. But, we're all going to die, as far as I can tell. I'm working on not dying. No one has really been successful yet (laughter).
It's a part of living. Make sure that you appreciate your time here and the people here everyday as opposed to taking everything for granted. But, you know, it's -- in a sense it's part of life.
I had a good friend of mine pass away last Wednesday. Doctor, 75 years old, "Dr. Golf." It was sad. Again, he doesn't want me not playing and missing this event and going to his funeral. That's the last thing he wants. The last thing my ex-wife would want for us to sit around and moan. You move on with your life and appreciate what she brought to your life. I think my kids have done an excellent job of that.

Q. Paul, I was going to ask you on the course, the last month hadn't been the greatest, missing a couple cuts. What's gone right this week?
PAUL GOYDOS: Well, I've gone -- missed the cut at Charlotte and at Players, third missed cut, and now I'm back in contention. I'm actually playing pretty well. The weeks where I missed cuts were a combination of bad things happening and bad decisions.
You know, there's more to the game than just physically feeling good about how you're playing. I physically felt pretty good about my game at Colonial. Just made two, three of the biggest mental blunders in the history of the game and missed the cut by one. Double and a triple on the 10th hole, which is a 3-wood and 9-iron. You can hit it a thousand yards to the left and knock it on the green. Both times I hit it to the right. It's lunacy.
I can look back at Charlotte. I just kind of made a mess of a few holes where I actually had a chance. I like where my game is. It showed up in Texas. It showed up so far for basically this week. Just keep doing your work and kind of keep plugging along.

Q. Last question along these lines. With your daughters, where are they, for example, today? Do you text them? Are they excited about your 64?
PAUL GOYDOS: Both my daughters are at home. They both had to work today. Yeah. My daughter texted me yesterday. She was following around on-line. I don't know if that's what she's supposed to be doing at work (laughter). Hopefully a slow time.
Yeah, they'll send me a text saying "Great playing." They know what's going on. I think they are at the age now where they kind of understand. When I won at Bay Hill, four and six, no idea of what's going on. When I won in Hawaii a couple years ago, really stood out. It's actually gotten to the point they enjoy me being gone more than anything. They know I'm playing and earning a living and they want a car. They know I need to play well in order for those things to happen. With my game I need to play a lot to play well.

Q. Paul, I was going to ask you, outside you said Brian Gay is very good at running away. What is it that you've seen in his makeup that makes him a player like that?
PAUL GOYDOS: I don't know what it is. If I knew what it was, I would try to do it, too. I just watched him at Hilton Head and pretty big event. I don't know what his lead was after three rounds. He shot 7-under par. Shot 20-under par one year, double what the next guy is under par. That's pretty impressive. That's Tiger Woods-like.
He's kind of -- this week, I don't know, he's 14, 15-under now and kind of going -- it's a problem you're going to have with a 2, 3, 4-shot lead. And Hilton Head is any indication, we better shoot another really low round.

Q. It's been really hard here to make birdies the last couple years. This year it seems like the scoring has been a little bit better. Have they done anything to course, or is that just the weather condition?
PAUL GOYDOS: It's just weather. My understanding, local people that know better, been pretty wet. The golf course -- the greens are soft. The rest of the golf course is basically the same, but the greens are softer, and you don't have as big -- before, you know, last three years playing here, lot of pins you couldn't hit at the pin. You had to kind of land in that first third of the green and try to get it pin high right or left. You couldn't get to the corners.
After the rain obviously last night, and I think again, it's been a wet spring here in Memphis, just softens the golf course up. If you have a nice dry spring next year, it will be back to playing very difficult. Soft greens and they putt perfectly, they're just too good out here. Somebody is going to shoot a good score.

Q. If I can just follow-up, no one complained about the course the last couple years.
PAUL GOYDOS: I think it's what we want. I think that's more weather. I think that they would much -- I think they would actually rather have the golf course like it was the last three years than like this. Though, we'll see what happens.
If we -- in my opinion, you get a guy like Brian Gay, if he ends up winning the tournament at six, seven shots, it's pretty obvious as opposed to a tournament we have 15 guys within three, four shots of the lead, right now we're separating them.

Q. What kind of a jump is it to go from, you know, struggling to make the cut and all of a sudden being in contention?
PAUL GOYDOS: Shocking. Really was. I was playing good, but, again, I just made a couple of blunders the first day on 15 and 16 and just kind of was fighting back from that all day, and then all of a sudden, I made about a 30-footer on No. 10 for birdie and the game just kind of hopped on for whatever reason.
But, again, that's good, but you need to get ready for it. I thought my game has been good. I'm not, you know, happy with the way I've played the last two months. Obviously Texas was very good. So, you know, when the game popped on, I was ready for it.
It's like I needed my confidence. It doesn't hurt to make 30-footers. It's amazing how it makes the world a lot easier. If you know you're making a few putts, hitting it 10 feet -- playing a little safer, like No. 12 today with the pin on the right, five paces behind that pin is a hazard, six paces in front is a hazard. Ten feet left, you've got twice as much room.
When you're not making those putts, you tend to be a little more aggressive with that pin and maybe make a mistake. It's amazing how good putting, how it makes good things happen and really turns things around, too.
PHIL STAMBAUGH: We're all done. Paul, good luck tomorrow.

End of FastScripts

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